CONTEMPLATING THE INNER SELF WITH OTOKO UENO IN "BEAUTY AND SADNESS"

Abstract

This article was written in reference to Beauty and Sadness, by Yasunari Kawabata, concerning the act of contemplation through one of its main characters, Otoko Ueno. We revised the author's writing style, scholar and promoter of classical Japanese culture, which includes the classical aesthetics found in this literary work and correlates to the character we have analyzed. In the following sections we discuss how Otoko's inner self extends into characters she is closely related to, turning her into a fragmented version of herself and gives the impression of a lack of depth, the image of others turning into a reflection of herself as a result. This reflection, as contemplated by her, is identified as narcissism by the author himself in the book.